Sometimes it takes a radical idea to refresh the way we think about our built environment. The Stone by Architect Marcelo Ertorteguy provides just that vision – he proposes that an underground bunker be suspended in the air within the confines of a block of petrified soil. Many approaches to building site structures beneath the earth or towering amid the clouds, but this competition-winning proposal wryly asks: “why not both?”

As climate change and population pressure demand new building strategies many architects have responded by going down or going up. Underground homes are a becoming more and more an environmentally viable form of architecture, as the earth tempers the interior climate. Modular buildings stacked to the sky, is a response to the dynamic space needs for a mobile and dense population.

The Stone concept is a visualization of the two. The idea is simple enough—an underground bunker is attached to a petrified earthen case. The block of earth is craned above the landscape and suspended in the air. A dynamic and ironic attempt to create an “inhabitable cloud” is the dramatic result. The work becomes a blend of architecture and art, below and above — a statement on the crossroads of two green building trends.